The Immortal Lord and the Demon Venerable Are Both My Vests - Chapter 2

Yin Lang thought his return to Tianji Peak had been stealthy enough, but…

“Cough… Why did Senior Brother suddenly come over?”

The person waiting by the stone table cast him a helpless look. “Mu Xuan, you’re no longer a Golden Core stage cultivator like you were hundreds of years ago. Even without using seclusion as an excuse, no one would stop you from leaving the sect.”

Yin Lang acted as if he hadn’t heard, leisurely taking a seat across from him. He picked up the tea Gu Fuxuan had already poured and took a light sip before responding with a smile. “What are you talking about, Senior Brother?”

Snow-white robes with jade belt, refined and handsome features, a dot of crimson red between his brows, slender silver chains threading through his dark hair and swaying as it cascaded down.

Clear and elegant, carefree and unrestrained.

Even though after all these years, he had long seen through the extremely deceptive exterior his junior brother possessed and knew what kind of wicked nature lay beneath, every time Gu Fuxuan looked at this face, he couldn’t help but soften.

He shook his head. Already so old, why couldn’t he change this playful nature? Or was it because Master had watched him too strictly before, and now without anyone to restrain him, he had completely rebounded?

“Three days from now will be our sect’s once-per-century Mountain Opening Ceremony.”

“Not taking any.”

Understanding the unspoken meaning, Gu Fuxuan had barely begun when Yin Lang decisively threw out two words.

Senior Brother had already nagged him about this more than once. But taking disciples under the identity of “Tianji Daojun” carried far too great a risk—not only troublesome, but also requiring him to constantly face the danger of his identity being exposed. He’d have to be crazy to do such a thing.

Gu Fuxuan let out a heavy sigh. Just as he was about to continue, he suddenly covered his mouth and coughed lightly twice.

“Senior Brother?” Yin Lang’s eyes filled with concern.

“It’s nothing, just the old ailment flaring up occasionally.” Gu Fuxuan wiped his mouth indifferently.

This problem of occasionally coughing up blood had existed since hundreds of years ago, before he even began cultivating. The pills of the cultivation world couldn’t cure it, and medical cultivators who examined him couldn’t find the root cause either, only saying it wouldn’t endanger his life. So Gu Fuxuan simply let it be.

He looked around and asked, “Didn’t Nephew Feng return with you?”

Feng Lan was the false name Qin Xun used at Taihua Immortal Sect.

Yin Lang naturally covered for his disciple. “He’s still traveling outside. In his last message, he seemed to have reached Li Dynasty. I heard the snow silk cake from Li Capital is unparalleled in Lantian, so I’ve already sent back word for him to bring some when he returns… Senior Brother can try some too.”

Gu Fuxuan had always indulged his junior brother, even though this was obviously changing the subject. “Mortal delicacies do indeed have many novel and creative ideas.”

His junior brother’s resistance to taking disciples remained as strong as ever.

After being deliberately redirected multiple times, Gu Fuxuan reached this expected conclusion.

Feng Lan had been picked up during one of Mu Xuan’s travels a hundred years ago. Although his talent hadn’t disappointed Mu Xuan’s expectations, his strange temperament seemed to be inherited from Mu Xuan’s lineage.

Outside of seclusion periods, he disliked staying in one place for long, couldn’t tolerate any unfamiliar people (even servants) stepping into his territory, making Tianji Peak empty of its title as a main peak, most of the time without even a single person present.

Gu Fuxuan’s original intention in having him take disciples was to hope his junior brother would honestly stay at Tianji Peak to teach disciples and settle down a bit. But if he forced disciples upon him, only for Mu Xuan to abandon them and leave again, that would be putting the cart before the horse and waste a good seedling for nothing.

Forget it, let him be.

“I’ll have Chang’an come over from time to time to help you manage things.”

“Then please lend me Xiao Chang’an, Senior Brother.”

The two spoke simultaneously.

After a brief pause, Yin Lang laughed first. “That’s perfect. Xiao Chang’an is beautiful and skilled with her hands, and most importantly, she can make many types of swee—cough, in any case, thank you for your generosity, Senior Brother.”

As soon as Gu Fuxuan left, Yin Lang immediately showed his true colors.

Casually tossing aside the half-drunk tea, he roughly tore off the crimson gem hanging between his brows, pulling away a few strands of broken hair with it.

The silver chain made by mortal craftsmen easily broke into seven or eight pieces, and the gem also cracked into three fragments. Yin Lang instinctively wanted to release black flames to burn the remnants to ash, but paused mid-motion and instead crushed them with physical strength.

—Before retrieving the real Heaven-Concealing Stone, he couldn’t frequently use his powers.

The crimson gem, rumored by the outside world to be “a natal treasure with a peculiar appearance,” was actually called the “Heaven-Concealing Stone”—a treasure for concealing one’s aura whose grade even Yin Lang himself didn’t know clearly. It was also the only memento left by his mother.

Yin Lang possessed an extremely rare Spirit-Demon Constitution. When he circulated his cultivation, spiritual qi and demonic qi within his body inevitably operated together. While this gave him double the cultivation base of others at the same realm, it also destined his path to the Dao to be difficult.

When he was young, his mother had placed a unique seal within his body, and considering that as his cultivation increased, this seal’s effectiveness would inevitably diminish, she had given him the Heaven-Concealing Stone.

The seal could hide his power up to the Out-of-Body stage at most.

Last night, breaking into Jihe Alliance without the Heaven-Concealing Stone had already been an enormous risk. Had it not been for the chaotic spiritual qi during the rainstorm, and Lin Chiluo being a spiritual cultivator, those cunning subordinates behind him would probably have become suspicious on the spot.

Seven days ago, he had attended the Ninth Venerable’s challenge. These one-on-one battles between Demon Venerables occurred every year or two, mostly among the relatively lower-ranked Demon Venerables.

In short, commonplace.

The silver chain of the Heaven-Concealing Stone couldn’t be destroyed even when he used the God-Slaying Spear at full force, so the aftershocks of a battle between two Demon Venerables who weren’t even fighting very seriously couldn’t possibly break it.

Yet even after replaying that day’s scene in his mind countless times, Yin Lang still couldn’t figure out how the Heaven-Concealing Stone had vanished into thin air, how it had fallen into the hands of the Jihe Alliance Leader’s daughter, leaving even himself, connected to it by blood, unable to sense its specific location.

Lin Xinqiao.

He silently repeated this name.

The Heaven-Concealing Stone was there. Even if Gu Fuxuan hadn’t come, he would definitely attend this Mountain Opening Ceremony.

****

Xu Rong was subjected to intensive questioning by guards who had rushed from Dieyun City. Only after being interrogated until he was drenched in sweat did he barely escape suspicion and was allowed to leave the guard post.

The naive youth thought he had successfully concealed news of the immortal, not knowing that as soon as he left, the Dieyun City guard captain sent a report about the suspicious person’s appearance to Taihua Immortal Sect.

The message passed through layers until it reached the Sect Master’s hands. The Sect Master casually glanced at the jade stone storing the message, frowned slightly, and tossed the jade stone into his storage ring.

The first disciple, who was reporting on preparations for the Mountain Opening Ceremony, cast a puzzled look. The Sect Master said lightly, “Tianji just snuck out to play again. Continue.”

Dieyun City was located at the foot of Taihua Immortal Sect and already belonged to what mortals called an “Immortal City.” During the once-per-century Mountain Opening Ceremony, its prosperity and flourishing exceeded normal times by a hundredfold.

Xu Rong walking on the main street didn’t stand out at all, because looking around, ninety percent of the people on the street were mortals like him who had crossed mountains and rivers seeking immortality.

There were privileged children in brocade robes and mink fur, with attendants front and back, as well as people from poor families in ragged, filthy clothes. However, regardless of what kind of person they were, one thing was the same—the desire in their eyes to embark on the immortal path.

The inns in the city were already completely full, whether run by mortals or cultivators. Outside Dieyun City, tents had even spread out for a li… Such a grand spectacle, yet people were still continuously arriving.

Xu Rong knew this was still far from the final number.

Zhongzhou spanned tens of millions of li, with countless kingdoms of all sizes, and a total population in the tens of billions. And as Taihua Immortal Sect was the hegemon of Zhongzhou, the number one immortal sect of Lantian Continent, wealthy families from remote places even set out years or even over a decade in advance toward the Taihua mountain range where the immortal sect was located, just to participate in this once-per-century selection.

Xu Rong’s mind wandered, recalling the immortal sect’s grand scenes his royal father had once described to him. Suddenly, a sharp whistling sound came from overhead. Distracted, Xu Rong couldn’t dodge in time and barely managed to turn his head, but still took the full force of the whip!

Intense pain shot through his right shoulder. Tears instantly filled his eyes. Before he could cry out in pain, a kick accompanied by a scolding voice arrived. “Where did this stinking brat come from! Are you blind, daring to block our young miss’s path! Get lost!”

A kick with no restraint whatsoever struck viciously on his torn and bleeding whip wound. The severe pain beyond his tolerance instantly triggered his brain’s self-protection mechanism. After being kicked to the roadside, Xu Rong lay motionless, knocked unconscious by the pain.

The maidservant who had completed the expulsion turned back to report in a low voice. The young lady seated within layers of silk curtains only nodded lightly. Her exact features couldn’t be seen clearly, but the silhouette that showed was already enough to make young men’s hearts flutter.

Her voice was like spring orioles singing. “Let’s go. Pay no mind to irrelevant people.”

The palanquin departed as passersby whispered among themselves.

“Which young miss was that, so domineering? That young fellow just now was truly unlucky.”

“Hmph, that’s the daughter of the Jihe Alliance Leader, a fourth-rank sect in the south, a Foundation Establishment stage cultivator. The Jihe Alliance Leader is a great expert at the Integration stage. What does it matter if his daughter beats a mortal to death?”

“Wow—” came a chorus of gasps.

“Does the immortal’s daughter also have to seek immortality like us?” Immediately, no one felt indignant for the unconscious Xu Rong anymore.

“How can Taihua Immortal Sect be compared to other sects? Never mind the daughter of a fourth-rank sect master—even the son of the Sect Master of the first-rank sect Heavenly Sword Sect is studying at the immortal sect as someone’s disciple!”

The gasps immediately rose another level.

Forgotten by the crowd, Xu Rong slowly climbed up. Blood still flowed from his shoulder, but he seemed not to feel it at all, blankly raising his head to look at everything around him.

His ears continuously caught key words: ‘Taihua Immortal Sect,’ ‘Mountain Opening Ceremony’… He thought sluggishly: Another Mountain Opening Ceremony? But it hadn’t even been a hundred years since he joined Taihua Immortal Sect…

But… it was truly so lively. How long had it been since he’d seen such a prosperous scene?

His head throbbed with pain.

It felt like his head was about to split open.

The scenery before his eyes gradually blurred, transforming into colorful patches that spun along with heaven and earth…

Thud!

Xu Rong fell heavily to the ground.